Is the Customer Always Right – For Your Business?

It is said that the customer is always right – but can you have the wrong type of customer – one that is bad for your business?

The answer is a very definite yes – but what is the wrong customer?

That will largely depend on what your business does. But here is an example.

Imagine that you run a café – and every day your busiest period – between 11.30am and 2.30pm – is filled with customers. These customers however sit down and order a pot of tea and a slice of cake and take 2 hours to eat and drink it.

The Café may be full, but it’s full of customers that are bad for business – ones that in this case – stay long and spend little.

One of the hardest things to do when you run your own business is to turn work or business away – it somehow feels wrong doesn’t it – but understanding who your good customers are and why they are good customers will ultimately be better for your business.

So instead of going out and embracing everything and everyone you can, it’s really worth stepping back and actually taking the opportunity to look much more closely at who is good for your business by using the numbers in your business, profiling and targeting your existing customers and benchmarking them against some of the key success factors.

Key success factors could include:

- Spend per visit or transaction/size of orders

- Age

- Customer type – family, group, couple, individual, business

- Frequency of custom

- Location

- The time at which they use/buy what you are selling

- How quickly they pay

Consider also some of the more subjective things – such as whether you like working with them – if you don’t like them, it is unlikely that you will provide the best service you can, and you want to be known for what you do and you want it to be the best.

Create a picture of who are the right customers for your business and not only will you have the opportunity to proactively target more of the same type of customers, you will start to identify the ones to avoid!

It will also play a major role in shaping and targeting your marketing activities and help you save time, effort and ultimately money – because what you do is geared specifically to target the right people in the right place at the right time with the right messages.

Not targeting your customers could result in a lot of wasted effort and diminish your chances of sales success.

Bad customers will deflect your energies away from more positive things. You will not do your best work for people you do not like. Work with customers you like and you will enjoy it more, and as a result, do a better job.

If you want to know how your numbers will tell you the Good the Bad and the downright Ugly when it comes to your customers, and then how to target those customers to improve your business, come and talk to us on 01872 560326 or email us on info@gainaccountancy.co.uk. Alternatively simply come and see us at Trevissome Park, Chiverton, near Truro (on the Newquay Road) or visit our website at www.gainaccountancy.co.uk.